Frost DPS problem with logs

I was hoping some of you Frost DK's could maybe help me diagnose where a raid members DPS is going wrong. He recently switched from Dual Wield Frost to 2hand and seems to be having some adjustment issues. I just don't know enough about looking over Frost logs to say where his problems are. He says he's following the priority on Icy-veins, but if that were the case he'd be pulling much higher numbers. I ran a simcraft on him today also and he's about 10 to 20 short in game when compared to the sim even when having him DPS on a raid dummy. Onto the links:

In comparable gear... with any fight that involves a cleave DW will likely do better. Looking at his gear a lot of it still has mastery on which doesn't really do much for 2h frost. He also doesn't have the 2set bonus for extra Obliterate damage (ilvl or not it's worth using LFR pieces just for that) and he's gemming half-strength (str/hit gems) and half pure haste gems... up until a point gemming purely for strength would likely be better, regardless of what askmrrobot says :-P (can sim it to make sure) and the trinket from will of the emps would likely help him massively with passive haste.

I've never been brilliant at the Garalon fight, it seems the legs always seem to respawn in the pheromone trail but, even then I used to average around 120k (i think) as 2h frost (I've been unholy for a while) and WoL rankings show the majority of good frost DK parses around 140k dps. Most of those people will have 2-4set though, and a lot of them are likely DW.

Looking at the Garalon log you linked the first thing that stands out is the lack of obliterates, over the course of that fight I would expect 80+ obliterates as it's the largest portion of our damage (he had more frost strikes!) - it looks like he's using a lot of those runes on howling blast (whether that's because he can't get to the legs I don't know) but the damage buff from standing in one blue leg ring doesn't impact damage to Garalon's body and other legs via cleaves any more IIRC so it's likely better to single target the legs rather than trying to cleave everything down.

I'll leave the better DKs on here to pick out anything else tbh, but yeah - would say:

*Gem for STR
*Get the 2 set bonus
*reduce the amount of mastery gear
*on single target fights only use howling blast when it procs from rime
*normal starshatter will be better than LFR shin'ka... failing that just upgrade shin'ka to 2/2
*on Garalon you can keep his body diseased and spread those diseases to legs using pestilence
*Forget the "howling blast/frost strike"ness of DW and prioritise Obliterate.

Less Howling Blasts more obliterates change gems from str/hit purples to hit/haste green gems makes runes replenish faster allows reforging out of hit to other stats mastery is his worst stat as DW hit/exp to caps then haste>crit 2 pce will be a big upgrade should only frost strike if he has the proc and cant use Obliterate or if he is RP capping should try to keep r4 runes on cd 2 blood 1 unholy 1 frost for more death runes to proc but biggest issue is more oblit less frost strikes

On Garalon he's overusing Howling Blast, he used 5 times Pillar of Frost instead of 7, his Blood Plague uptime is really low and I bet he has some problem with spreading diseases since he overused Plague Strike but his worst problem is his Frost Strike usage that is really really low: I don't know if he has some problem standing 100% in melee range (his melee attacks are a bit lower than mines in a similar fight) or if he is way overcapping runic power.

Thanks for the input. I'm approaching this from the point of simcraft mostly. My sims of him have him doing roughly 30% more DPS per fight than what he's currently at, so I'm looking mainly for the problem underlying the dichotomy I'm seeing, sims vs. real. I'm not expecting him to be at 95% of sim or anything, I would just like to see him back on a competitive level.

He's been pretty unlucky when it comes to set pieces and one handed weapons thus far, which is why he's not wearing tier gear. If he were to go back to DW, he'd been switching in 2x Ook's hozen slicer. Is LFR Shin'ka with the gem in it still worse off than normal starshatter? He has both, but i believe as of lastnight he's got Shin'ka upgraded 2/2 where the starshatter is 0/2. It seems like an awful waste ... but maybe I'm overvaluing the sha-touched weapon.

For the frost strikes, he says he was waiting for rune power >95 before frost striking if anything else was up but then frost striking if there he had downtime due to rune regen. He's right or course but maybe in practice he's waiting too long to frost strike and it's capping like you say.

As for pillar, I believe he has it macro'd to his ghoul, so sometimes he might forget to get it off.

It makes sense i guess (after talking to him lastnight) that he's overusing howling blast. He was complaining that he's on cooldown quite a bit on the legs and can't obliterate that often. So if he's getting antsy, maybe he's jumping the gun and using howling blast.

One more question, is there a priority addon for frost DK's? Something like this? Or even a weakauras/power auras package that may help highlight what he should be doing at any given time.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 02:35 PM ----------

Originally Posted by vmagik

as Italiandk said... think he was afk :P Tbh he might just be better sticking with DW.

Yeah, I didn't notice how low it was until I linked it lastnight. I hope it doesn't come to having him switch back. It shouldn't be that big of a deal to switch from 2hand to DW ...

Thanks for the input. I'm approaching this from the point of simcraft mostly. My sims of him have him doing roughly 30% more DPS per fight than what he's currently at, so I'm looking mainly for the problem underlying the dichotomy I'm seeing, sims vs. real. I'm not expecting him to be at 95% of sim or anything, I would just like to see him back on a competitive level.

He's been pretty unlucky when it comes to set pieces and one handed weapons thus far, which is why he's not wearing tier gear. If he were to go back to DW, he'd been switching in 2x Ook's hozen slicer. Is LFR Shin'ka with the gem in it still worse off than normal starshatter? He has both, but i believe as of lastnight he's got Shin'ka upgraded 2/2 where the starshatter is 0/2. It seems like an awful waste ... but maybe I'm overvaluing the sha-touched weapon.

For the frost strikes, he says he was waiting for rune power >95 before frost striking if anything else was up but then frost striking if there he had downtime due to rune regen. He's right or course but maybe in practice he's waiting too long to frost strike and it's capping like you say.

As for pillar, I believe he has it macro'd to his ghoul, so sometimes he might forget to get it off.

It makes sense i guess (after talking to him lastnight) that he's overusing howling blast. He was complaining that he's on cooldown quite a bit on the legs and can't obliterate that often. So if he's getting antsy, maybe he's jumping the gun and using howling blast.

One more question, is there a priority addon for frost DK's? Something like this? Or even a weakauras/power auras package that may help highlight what he should be doing at any given time.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 02:35 PM ----------

Yeah, I didn't notice how low it was until I linked it lastnight. I hope it doesn't come to having him switch back. It shouldn't be that big of a deal to switch from 2hand to DW ...

Give him time I guess, tbh if I switched from 2H to DW right now I'd likely suck for a while until the new priorities sank in. Basically, now he's using a 2hander he has Might of the Frozen Wastes rather than Threat of Thassarian and that means obliterate is his number 1 priority (after diseasing a target) as it hits/crits like a truck compared to any other ability we have (apart from soul reaper which he should use on cooldown post 35%). Yes, you will be waiting for it to come off cooldown as it uses 2 runes instead of Howling Blast (DWs main attack) which only uses 1 rune and he doesn't have a whole load of haste at the moment to make his waiting times any better. He's likely seeing howling blast is available and, instead of waiting for that second obliterate rune he's just "jumping the gun" as you said. Because 2h's reforge is based on haste>crit>mastery rather than mastery>crit>haste for DW he'll have less mastery (frost damage) overall meaning his Howling Blasts won't be hitting for as much as if he was DW.

if he's waiting for rune power to be above 95 before frost striking then he's likely wasting a lot of rune power as it could cap, he's better off frost striking around the 60-80% mark whenever he has a GCD that can't be used on obliterate, it's better than capping/wasting rune power.

A quick look on curse shows this mod Ovale... don't have any experience with it but a few of my friends raved about it in Cata, it might help him out.

All in all a 2H spec will feel a lot slower than a DW spec at his current gear level, am personally still after my second 1h weapon (got another shin'ka off sha last night, "yay") so I can go DW and have a blood (in DPS gear) offspec (they both prioritise mastery) for soloing dumb stuff! DW is just the way to go at the moment IMO, any fights with a cleave benefit so much.

...and yes, as 2H frost normal Starshatter is better than LFR shin'ka with the gem, he should have upgraded Starshatter, it's a different story if he was unholy though IMO :-P

I see he is an engineer, he should have a macro similar to the one above. If hed rather macro in his haste trinket instead of his gloves thats fine, but as Gloves/PoF are on the same CD, it makes it very convenient to just push 1 button and get them both up.

I have 497 Starshatter and just picked up a 510 Elegion so I went to DW, because of the stats on my current gear (Heavy haste vs. Mastery) the 2H is still simming higher than going DW, add to that my comfort level with playing 2H Frost over DW, and it is the clear winner for me.

I didnt look at the logs but from what I read in this thread, it seems he is using Howling Blast when he should be waiting for an Obliterate to be available. If it isnt a Rime Proc, or for some reason you need to reapply Frost Fever, there is no reason to push howling blast (Unless we are talking 4+ mobs, then Throw on a Cinderglacier DW weapon anyway and spam away)

Also he said he isn't using Frost Strike until hes at 95 Runic Power, thats not always the best idea either, if his runes are on CD, and he has 75 RP... Frost Strike. That FS could proc his Runic Empowerment, allowing for an earlier obliterate. Also make sure he is holding Killing Machine procs for his Obliterates (Download a Swing timer if you need to). Furthermore if hes at 95 RP and his Auto attack procs a killing machine, hes now going to obliterate and waste RP, or hes going to Frost Strike and have a subpar attack to having used it on Oblit.

---------- Post added 2013-01-04 at 03:17 AM ----------

I just noticed he is also over the hit cap, he can revert the reforge on his bracers to pick up additional haste, in 488 ilvl gear im pushing 1500 more haste than he is. Current sims have me gemming straight haste in yellows as Haste is 1.57 to Str at 2.8. Same goes with Blues, if he needs the hit to reach cap, he should have the Haste/Hit gem in those.

On his 2h log. Fix that. He even has melee more then FS, the fuck? His dps log should show, OB > FS > Melee > HwB. On Bladelord particular fight as 2h you end up using more FS then you would like just because of the timming when he does the shadowstep so not to loose any procs by keeping them and then boss disappear.

I just noticed he is also over the hit cap, he can revert the reforge on his bracers to pick up additional haste, in 488 ilvl gear im pushing 1500 more haste than he is. Current sims have me gemming straight haste in yellows as Haste is 1.57 to Str at 2.8. Same goes with Blues, if he needs the hit to reach cap, he should have the Haste/Hit gem in those.

Thats kinda worrying... recently went to dps to help the slacking dps i seem to have in my group, sitting at 473ilvl as 2h frost, i dont think it would be a struggle to out dps him.. from what i've seen from the two linked blade lord logs anyway lol.

however he did die on that 2h Blade lord attempt, even so with his gear he should still pull a lot more, i havent world of logged any of the fights as a frost dk but i.m.o its just his play style as a frost dk, it's not as good as others even when he is DW, his burst with duel weild was 90-150k at start (with lust), with my pitiful 473ilvl i burst anywhere from 140-200k via skada, not sure how accurate skada is compared to WoL though, and his 2h burst was under 100k.

As pillar increaces your strenght depending on how much you have in the first place this macro will be more benefitial

wrong.
it does not matter which one you cast first.
you should also be using raise dead before pillar now since the ghouls stats adjust with procs/cds dynamically so you're wasting a gcd with synapse springs and pillar if you cast it afterwards now.

you should also be using raise dead before pillar now since the ghouls stats adjust with procs/cds dynamically so you're wasting a gcd with synapse springs and pillar if you cast it afterwards now.

Indeed.

Ghoul takes a few seconds to actually start hitting stuff after being summoned, so you should be popping it a few seconds before you use pillar. This also leaves you with an extra gcd to use damaging abilities with pillar up.

Ghoul takes a few seconds to actually start hitting stuff after being summoned, so you should be popping it a few seconds before you use pillar. This also leaves you with an extra gcd to use damaging abilities with pillar up.